Page 266 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

1.4. NOTES 159

testant theologians that ghosts must be either angels, or
devils; he gives no hint of Purgatory. Cf. Introd. p. Hi.
43.* in such a questionable shape =in at any rate a
form 1 can talk to.
53. Revisits (£>2, Fi, Qi) Most edd. read
'revisit'st,' but Sh. commonly omitted 't' of 2nd pers.
sing, when it would be ugly or difficult to pronounce.
Cf. 1. 5. 84, and MSH. p. 291.
54. fools of nature — nature's dupes, i.e. the realm of
natural phenomena is an illusion, as we realise when
faced by the supernatural.
68. waves me forth Sh. is thinking in terms of the
theatre. The 'platform' is out of doors in Elsinore, but
at the Globe the Ghost stands by one of the stage exits
and 'waves forth.' Cf. 1. 1. head-note and notes 3. 2.
378; 3. 4. 49-51 below.
73.* deprive.. .reason «= dethrone your reason from
its sovereignty over the mind. Cf. 'your cause of
distemper' 3. 2. 338.
75-8. The very place.. .beneath. Fi omits these
lines; Delius fantastically suggests that Sh. wished to
use the substance of them for his description of the cliff
at Dover in King Lear.
82. artere* Q2 'arture,' Fi 'Artire,' Qi 'Artiue.'
For Sh. the word was a dissyllable; 'artere' is a normal
sp. of the period. MSH. p. 288. [1954. v. G.]
91. direct it = direct 'the issue.' Hor. answers his
own question.
Nay i.e. 'let us not leave it to heaven, but do some-
thing ourselves' (Clar.).

1.5.
S.D. The scene takes place on the front stage; the.
Ghost disappears down the trap, and then 'cries under
the stage.' Chambers, who does not think that the upper-
stage 'was used for the platform at Elsinore Castle,' gives
as his reasons: 'There would be hardly room "above"